Old Fashioned Gold Mining in Georgia

During the Stalin’s period gold mining prospered in different corners of the USSR. The lack of this metal determined the gold finders to cherish. The Soviet state wasn’t considering the costs of such gold because again, of the great lack of this material. After Iosiv Stalin’s death such large-scale mining operations were stopped. Now, in Georgia some citizens are refreshing their grandfathers methods.

Only several families mine gold.

But farming is their main job.

Also some citizens are producing hooch.

Gold is mined near the river.

An old-fashioned machinery still works good.

But sometimes a little repair and tuning is needed.

A stone helps to fix wooden trough.

The principle of washing gold is simple, gold is heavier, and it settles on the bottom of the trough, and if it blows by the water, it gets stuck at the end of the trough, where is board with slats attached under which the rags are being put.

Praying before work.

A pit is digging to the layer where is gold. Pit dug near the stone, because near it the sand comes across. Then stone’s plates are uprooted.

Sand scraped into a bucket for further washing.

As the bucket is filled, all the contents are poured into a trough with running water.

This is the size of ones found gold nugget.

Heavy gold settles first and get stuck here.

Then dismantling of the structure begins. Carefully and slowly.At first,the trough is being removed. Then the inner board is taken out. Rags with sand are put in a pan, and washed , whatever one grain of sand is not lost.

Here is the little nugget

A few grains of gold on a background of sand.

The gold is put into a bottle.

After work, the hooch is ready. Old grandmother looked after it.

Very old mining tools are found often. This can tell, that gold mining on this river prospered more earlier, than Stalin’s period.

2 thoughts on “Old Fashioned Gold Mining in Georgia”

Beware of some Canadian guys named Gabriel Resources…They might come and offer you great “jobs opportunity” working for them and poisoning the river with cyanide. See Romania’s Rosia Montana Gold Corporation if you have pacience reading about it.